CDSL Hits Milestone Of 10 Crore Demat Accounts

Central Depository Services (India) Ltd. has become India's first depository to register 10-crore demat accounts, mirroring the post-pandemic spike in the number of equity investors.

These demat accounts belong to investors spread across India, it said in a statement on Wednesday. The investors or beneficial owners are serviced by CDSL's over 580 depository participants from over 20,000 locations, it said.

The pandemic spawned a new breed of retail equity investors, with the total number of demat accounts surging nearly threefold since March 2020 to 10 crore now.

CDSL holds and transacts securities in electronic form on behalf of investors and facilitates the settlement of trades on stock exchanges. It's the only listed depository in India.

Apart from CDSL, the National Securities Depository Ltd. is the other depository in India. As of Oct. 31, CDSL had over 21,400 companies registered, while about 42,999 companies have their securities in demat form on NSDL.